Music biz loses court case against P2P developer

The four major record labels and a local music rights group have lost their court case against Spanish P2P developer Pablo Soto, who is the mastermind behind both the Blubster and Piolet file-sharing applications.

Universal, Sony, EMI and Warner had sued Soto in 2008 in an attempt to shut down file-sharing applications powered by his Manolito P2P protocol, also requesting €13 million ($17.01 million USD) in damages. They were joined in their efforts by the local music rights group Promusicae, which now announced it will appeal the ruling. Soto, on the other hand, has said he wants to go after the labels and sue them for damages for wrongful prosecution.

The plaintiffs tried to blame Soto for copyright infringement committed by his users, pointing out his apps didn’t provide a proper mechanism to filter out copyrighted works. The court rejected this argument, however, and found P2P itself is neutral, according to a report from the Spanish newspaper El Mundo.